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The Weird Week in Review

Secret Service Aids White House Invaders

A family of ducks walked through the lawn of the White House on Wednesday, though they needed some help doing it. A mother duck broached the perimeter, but the ducklings following her struggled to mount the concrete barrier. Secret Service agents came to the rescue, and lifted the ducklings through a fence. The agents received a round of applause from tourists watching the incident. Apparently, White House security determined the ducklings and their mother were no threat. The caper was captured on video.

Third-grader Gets Jury Duty Notice

Nine-year-old Jacob Clark of South Yarmouth, Massachusetts, received a notice that he was to report to the Orleans District Court on April 18 for jury duty. When his grandmother explained what that meant, Jacob became worried and didn't want to go. Jacob's father, Robby Clark called the jury commission and found that somewhere along the line, Jacob's birth year was listed in official documents as 1982 instead of 2002. The third-grader was relieved to learn he doesn't have to serve this year.

Promotion Leads to Massive Bomb Scare

They obviously did not recall the colossal Mooninite caper of 2007. Convar Deutschland, a German computer company, sent out advertising packages for their data-recovery service to prospective clients in the form of what appeared to be time bombs.

Convar Deutschland thought they had cooked up an exciting way to attract new clients, when they began gluing hard drives to alarm clocks and sending them to companies with a note reading, “Your time is running out.”

They sent out a total of 40 “time bombs” to businesses, shops, a handful of embassies and even the offices of a newspaper group.

But instead of drumming up customers, the stunt caused mayhem as terrified recipients called the police and prompted building evacuations, Berlin paper Tagesspiegel reported on Friday.

The company may have to pay the police for expenses incurred.

Fluorescent Millipedes Discovered on Alcatraz

Scientists using black lights to trace dyed rat bait on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco have found something completely unrelated -and unexpected. They discovered millipedes that glow under black light beams. There are known bioluminescent millipede species in California, but the glowing mechanism of the Alcatraz millipedes appears to be different. Scientists are studying them to determine whether they are a new subspecies. And to answer your question, yes, they isolated a sample of the millipedes to make sure they weren't glowing because they had eaten the rat bait.

Woman Cheats Drug Test; Fails

Mischelle Lindy Salzgeber, of Dade City, Florida, had to undergo a drug test because she is on probation. Knowing she would fail, Salzgeber had a plan to use someone else's urine instead of her own. As she went through a full-body scan, an x-ray revealed she had a small bottle hidden in her vagina. Salzgeber was questioned and eventually admitted that she had smuggled urine in the bottle for her drug test, which had already taken place. However, even if she hadn't been caught, she would have failed the drug test, because the smuggled urine was not the clean sample she though it was!

Pet Lizard Undergoing Chemotherapy

Lizzie Griffiths, of Purley, Greater London, England, adopted George the bearded dragon from a shelter a year ago despite the fact that he was ill from a chest infection. She nursed the lizard back to health, but then he developed a tumor on his face. Griffiths had the cancer removed twice, but it came back again. Now the lizard is getting chemotherapy treatment -the first bearded dragon to have such treatment in the UK. Griffiths has spent £3,000 on veterinary services so far -and must drive George 200 miles every day for his appointments. Griffiths doesn't mind the expense, because she is devoted to her dragon.

UFO Fragment Lands in Siberia

An unidentified piece of metal fell from the sky over Siberia, according to Russian media reports. Locals from the village of Otradnesnky dragged the U-shaped metal fragment from the forest where it was found. Authorities confiscated the object soon after. A representative of the Russian space agency says the metal did not come from a rocket or missile. Experts assured villagers that the object is not radioactive. There is speculation that it may be a piece of a rocket from a launch from Kazakhstan.

Also on Mental Floss:

DID YOU KNOW? Marlon Brando hated memorizing lines so much that he posted cue cards everywhere to help him get through scenes.
He even asked for lines to be written on an actress's posterior. (That request was denied.)